Pages

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Finding my voice

When I first started this blog back in 2003, I did it
because it was expected of me as a new writer. Websites were de rigeueur, so
of course, I had one, but blogs were the new kid on the block, the bandwagon
everyone was jumping on.

So, I jumped, too.

And missed.

What the heck was I supposed to say? I wrote fiction, not
conversations with strangers. I posted a few things every once in a while, but
heck, I barely managed that other author necessity, the newsletter. How was I
supposed to think of stuff to say every week? Or worse, every day?

The blog sputtered and nearly died several times. For a
while it was pretty much a repeat of my newsletter. I had books to write and a
family to raise as well as a full-time job. And readers didn't talk back to me,
anyway. Might as well just chuck it.

(Sidenote: I pretty much felt the same way when Twitter came
along. All the advice said, “Have a conversation with your readers, don’t just
post when you have a new book.” But I’m terrible at starting conversations in real
life, let alone cyberspace. I’m just not that interesting a person!)

Yes, I did the required reading and posting on other
people’s blogs, but mostly I just read them and learned about publishing (and
snark). Posting on them didn't seem to lead people back to my own blog and
stating that I’d covered a similar topic myself in a post was (is) considered
blatant self-promotion and frowned upon.

Then one year (2010), for my own edification, I decided to keep
track of all the books I read. I figured the easiest way to do that was to make
a post on the blog with a sentence or two about the book. Not a review, just a
record.

To my surprise, the hits went from single to double digits
each day. I pretty much doubled my readership and that surprised me because I really wasn't posting for the readers, I was posting for myself. I was my own audience
and so had loosened up. Maybe I was on to something here?

And then I started the writing workshops in September, 2011. I took the idea
from Dean Wesley Smith about putting each chapter out, then collecting those
chapters and making a book available. I’d been teaching writing in both the
real and virtual worlds (Second Life) for quite some time – making those
workshops available on the web seemed the next logical step.

This time my numbers tripled. Each Tuesday I’d have between
40 and 50 people visiting, apparently just for the workshop. Some would email
me with questions or comments, but mostly, the only indication I had that the
site was getting more traffic was in the hit numbers, because still, few left
comments.

(I double-checked the settings over a dozen times those
first few months of starting the writing workshops, concerned that maybe I’d
turned the comment feature off by accident. I hadn't. My readers are just not
talkers. In other words, they’re like me!)

But somewhere along the way, posting those writing workshops
helped me to find my voice when it comes to posting on this blog. I threw off
the artificial constraint I had put on myself (trying to figure out what people
wanted to read) and instead posted what I wanted to write. Sometimes that’s my
opinion about something, sometimes it’s a reflection about an event, sometimes
it’s barely anything at all but me enjoying the flow of words and exploring a
subject for fun.

But its me. It’s my voice.

Took me nearly nine years to find it, but find it, I did.
And my hits nearly doubled again.

Thank you to those who have been here from the beginning,
thank you to those who pop in occasionally just to see what’s going on. And
thank you to those who read every post, every time. You may not say much, but I
know you’re there and that’s what counts.